title: Faraday waves in smectic A liquid crystal layers.
abstract: We studied with linear stability analysis the onset of parametric waves on the surface of a smectic A liquid crystal. For thin Sm-A layers under an applied static magnetic field there are subharmonic-harmonic branches of surface waves at low modulating frequency of the driving acceleration and long wavelength. A semi-infinite Sm-A medium poses a dispersion relation with similar trends as for Newtonian liquids. When the external forcing is negligible there are two damped surface waves excited by thermal fluctuation of the interface, whereas in the absence of a magnetic field the dominant modes are of harmonic type for typical material parameters.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física, Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Apartado Postal 14-740, México Distrito Federal, Mexico.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hernández-Contreras